For your reading pleasure, I wrote up an image-heavy, not-comprehensive post on Doomsday Machines about depicting nuclear war in video games, with some thoughts on "Nuclear War" (1989) and "DEFCON" (2006). open.substack.com/pub/doomsday... - ThreadSky

wellerstein.bsky.social • 228 days ago

For your reading pleasure, I wrote up an image-heavy, not-comprehensive post on Doomsday Machines about depicting nuclear war in video games, with some thoughts on "Nuclear War" (1989) and "DEFCON" (2006). https://open.substack.com/pub/doomsdaymachines/p/strange-games?r=7tc7c&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Comments

neinmc.bsky.social•228 days ago

IMO the lackluster gameplay of Nuclear War is kind of the point. I played it a lot as a kid, and it was the ONE war game that made war seem really depressing and pointless. In that sense it's more realistic than Arma or whatever :P

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCOfS3fNZhc

kohiwonomu.bsky.social•228 days ago

As a Civ enthusiast I'm really looking forward to you writing that article you teased in the footnotes about Nuclear Gandhi 👀

wellerstein.bsky.social•227 days ago

I've been wanting to write something on it for years, both because it is an interesting game thing, but also because Gandhi's actual views on nukes are more interesting than I think most people know or would expect. So win-win

knut.dundasmora.no•228 days ago

There was a study of defcon changing attitudes!
https://journals.sfu.ca/loading/index.php/loading/article/view/130
but as far as I could read it it seemed effects were very minimal, which surprised me-- I found it very unsettling

wellerstein.bsky.social•228 days ago

Oh, that's good to know! I will update it.

wellerstein.bsky.social•228 days ago

I added an update to that footnote after taking a look at the paper. The study seems to have its limitations, but also a few provocative results that lead to further questions. So that's a useful thing to know about!

unwiredben.combee.net•228 days ago

I had a latent memory that the 1989 "Nuclear War" was based on the 1960's era "Nuclear War" card game (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_War_(card_game)), but looking at the source material, I don't think there was a direct link.

wellerstein.bsky.social•228 days ago

The gameplay sounds definitely inspired by the card game, for sure. The card game sounds like it has more depth, though, which is surprising!!!

wellerstein.bsky.social•228 days ago

also, lol at Steve Jackson's 1980 review: "This is NOT an 'introductory' wargame – it's not a wargame at all. It's a card game. Recommended for a quick social game or for when everyone is too sleepy to play anything complex."

unwiredben.combee.net•228 days ago

I found my reference, from September 1989 "The Dragon" magazine, page 81. (See https://archive.org/details/DragonMagazine260_201801/DragonMagazine149/page/n81/mode/2up)

alaska.bsky.social•228 days ago

Just saw it pop into my mailbox, and I'm glad you covered DEFCON. I bought it when it came out and played it incessantly for about three months, then stopped entirely when I "won" — beat all other players without taking a single hit, then thought about it.

ourflagmeansbeth.bsky.social•228 days ago

Amazing.

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